Old Fords

[TopGun]

Nearly every old Mondeo or Escort I see has masking tape on the rear bumper. They must have made them out of really crap plastic.

[Micky]

Strange that you should mention this - I have noticed this, not so much with Escorts, but certainly very prevalent with Mondeo's. The back bumper always seems to be damaged, - if you look at the shape of the bumper it looks sort of 1/2 oval, and Im wondering if a lot of them damage is caused simply by 'drag' as the car is driven. I see so many Mondeos with this sort of damage - I'm convinced that it's a design flaw. Anybody know any more ?

[RedAndWhite91]

I have an old Ford Fiesta (L reg) and while most of it is rusty and/or rotting the bumpers are just fine.

[Ponty]

Drag? I think not. It's simply that the plastic (generally a polyethylene or polyester), although very resilient to shock, does not really like deforming and springing back into shape without weakening significantly. This causes a spiderweb of failure lines and another impact, no matter how light, will cause it to break. As most of the Mondeos and Escorts have been on the road for years, and have a relatively long lifespan, they will have seen their fair share of knocks. Couple that with the ridiculous cost of replacement bumpers, the fact they also need colour-coding and the fact that anyone keeping a 10-15 year old car on the road is not going to want to spend money on it and you end up with the duct-tape solution.

[EastleighSoulBoy]

Drag? I think not. It's simply that the plastic (generally a polyethylene or polyester), although very resilient to shock, does not really like deforming and springing back into shape without weakening significantly. This causes a spiderweb of failure lines and another impact, no matter how light, will cause it to break. As most of the Mondeos and Escorts have been on the road for years, and have a relatively long lifespan, they will have seen their fair share of knocks. Couple that with the ridiculous cost of replacement bumpers, the fact they also need colour-coding and the fact that anyone keeping a 10-15 year old car on the road is not going to want to spend money on it and you end up with the duct-tape solution.

 

I thought all Fords came with a roll of duct tape in the glove box.

[Ponty]

The door mirror on our old Mondeo is held on with duct tape.

 

That car took a ride through a hedge last winter though, and came out the other side significantly slimmed down, so it's excused.

[Ric]

Duct tape is magic stuff - like every hitch hiker needs their towel, every man needs his roll of duct tape.

[landford.saint]

I don't consider Mondeo's and Mk 4, 5, 6 Escort s as Old fords. Cortina and mk 1, 2 Escort are old fords but not Mondeos.